"handcuffs are too tight," says mortgage fraudster Bobka in Florida

excerpt from the herald tribune
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110609/BREAKING/110609559/2055/NEWS?p=3&tc=pg

(Wait til he gets to jail!)

TAMPA - Rich Bobka, allegedly a key member of one of Florida's largest mortgage fraud rings, was arrested in Manatee County and transported Thursday to Tampa, where he made his initial appearance before a federal judge.

But Bobka, who had been a fugitive until his arrest Wednesday afternoon, was so frazzled that his defense attorney succeeded in getting the judge to delay his arraignment until next week.

Looking exhausted and breathing heavily through his nose, the 42-year-old Bobka met briefly with a public defender before the hearing began. The defender later asked Federal Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo to postpone the arraignment until Bobka got some rest and was thinking more clearly.

Law enforcement agents in the back of the courtroom said that Bobka — the last of 14 people indicted in the Sarasota-based flipping fraud ring to be arrested — had been a difficult inmate and seemed to be out of touch with reality.

Despite Bobka's fugitive status since late February, when the other defendants in the case were arrested, Pizzo granted the defender's request and set an arraignment for Wednesday. At that time, Bobka will be asked to choose an attorney and his bail will be set.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Tuite, who is prosecuting the case against Bobka and the other defendants, said the government's case against Bobka is "very strong."

"He is one of the organizers and leaders of this conspiracy, along with R. Craig Adams," Tuite said. "He is named in 34 of the 44 counts listed in the indictment and is facing substantial exposure."

There is ample documentary evidence against Bobka in the form of deeds and mortgages that he signed, and a half-dozen of the other defendants in the case — including Bobka's father, George — have agreed to testify against him, Tuite said.

Rich Bobka, a former real estate agent, has been charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and participation in a conspiracy to defraud banks out of $47 million by flipping properties for overstated prices and fooling lenders into writing inflated mortgage loans.

He was arrested by Manatee County sheriff's deputies at 4:09 p.m. on Wednesday at the Paradise Bay Motel, a cluster of pink-hued cottages near the fishing community of Cortez.

"We got a tip he was staying there and we went out and arrested him without incident," said sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow.

Federal officials declined to comment on where they thought Bobka had been for the nearly four months he was on the run.

Dressed in the same wide-neck blue T-shirt and black shorts that he wore when his mugshot was taken, Bobka complained before the hearing that his handcuffs were digging into his wrists. He grimaced and got up several times from his seat in the jury box to try to push them down.

"They're killing me," Bobka told a bailiff, who made no attempt to loosen them and instructed Bobka to remain seated.

The charges laid out in the 91-page indictment against Bobka and the other defendants describe a ring of property investors who faked documents and made flagrant misstatements about their finances to make sales happen and to qualify for inflated mortgages.

The indictments follow a 2009 investigative series by the Herald-Tribune that named Adams as the most prolific property flipper in Sarasota.

The newspaper found that Adams and his associates defaulted on more than $100 million in loans.

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